BCBUsinEss.Ca nOVEmBER 2018 BCBusiness 31
When his NDP government took power last year, Premier
John Horgan transformed from crabby Opposition leader
to beaming optimist. Fending off criticism from Alberta,
Ottawa and the BC Liberals, the talkative politician weighs
in on Site C, Trans Mountain, predecessor Christy Clark
and his controversial real estate tax
by STEVE BURGESS portraits by POOYA NABEI
LE A DE R SH I P
HAPPY
HORGAN
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, PART 1:
JOHN HORGAN, JOURNALIST
"We were stealing apples from Bruce Hutchison's backyard," the
premier recalls, standing in his spacious oce in the west annex
of the provincial legislature. Hutchison, the late newspaper legend
whose name is on the Lifetime Achievement Award presented
annually by the Jack Webster Foundation to a distinguished B.C.
journalist, was a neighbour of young John Horgan in Saanich.
"Everybody else scattered when he came out, but I was too high
up the tree," Horgan says. "He said, 'Wait,' and came back out with
a bushel basket. He said, 'Take as many as you can put in the basket,
but if you break a single branch you're never coming back.'"
Hutchison would end up helping to fund Horgan's post-
secondary education. He wrote him a glowing letter of recommen-
dation for the Carleton University journalism program, but the
school rejected Horgan anyway. "Even Vaughn Palmer says that
letter would have been good enough for him," Horgan notes.
